Categories:Election 2010
Posted by Colby Itkowitz at 05:49:07 PM on August 16, 2010

Since President Barack Obama’s comments last week about allowing a mosque to be
built in Lower Manhattan blocks from the site of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks,
local candidates -- like many across the country – are now being asked to weigh
in on the emotionally charged issue.

Republicans especially are eager to make it a political campaign issue by casting Obama, and any Democrat who agrees with him, as out of touch with mainstream America. (According to a Fox News poll, 64 percent of American adults do not want a mosque built near the Ground Zero site)

It's a highly emotionally charged issue that has Republicans condemning Obama for not being sensitive to victims of the World Trade Center attacks and Democrats varying in their responses.

U.S. Senate candidate Republican Pat Toomey's campaign made clear his opposition to it.

“It is provocative in the extreme to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero," said Nachama Soloveichik, Toomey spokeswoman. "Islamic leaders should be encouraged to move the mosque elsewhere.”

But Toomey's opponent, Joe Sestak, took an opposite, yet cautious, view. While he didn't outright say the mosque should be built at the planned site, he didn't say it shouldn't either. (Unlike Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who said through a spokesman that the mosque should be built elsewhere)

"Joe believes there is a Constitutional right to religious freedom and separation of church and state that applies equally to all Americans – a right he protected for 31 years in the Navy," Jonathon Dworkin, Sestak's spokesman said. "But he is not looking to say what’s best for New York as long as that right is respected -- he is focused on Pennsylvania."